How to win Gold Lions at Cannes

It’s awards season – a painful, exhilirating, mental and rewarding time in agencies. The biggest whopper of an award show is coming up and tons of case studies are being edited and submitted as we speak. All to win some Gold Lions at Cannes. So at Adverblog, we thought it would be helpful to take a group-wide look at the Art of the Case Study. We describe some of the obvious and some of the not-so-obvious characteristics of a true winner (in terms of case study). First, have a quick look at Lars Bastholm’s tips from 2009:

As the case movie becomes an art form in itself, the question is: Which awards show will be the first to actually give out an award for “Best Case Study” ?

Below are my points, which I wrote after most of the other (more creative tips) had been made by the other Adverblog editors already. I decided to add three rather mundane items. They are nevertheless highly annoying if not thought about before hitting the magic ‘Submit’ button.

Go easy on the ‘Never been done before’ – chances are I have indeed seen something similar before. Which isn’t bad at all. Only if you try to make me believe you were the first to ever think of connecting Twitter with your mum’s Facebook page.

Don’t use a custom video player and don’t put it on your shitty agency video server. Use YouTube like every other dweeb in the world. If I have to suck your 60 megabyte creative bonanza through a straw from your crappy PC that runs the rest of your country’s advertising case studies – I am in a bad mood already. Nothing kills your thrilling case dead in its track like a stuttering video player.

Have a compelling submission page: good layout, title at the top (why not in the style of the campaign?), start with the case study film, bullet point the main points of the challenge, strategy, idea, execution. And follow with the long copy below. I will read it when I am intrigued but don’t make me wade through long-winded, inflated hyperbole before I get to the idea and video. And no agency branding, please. Duh!

Have a read of the full article on Adverblog and please feedback what you thought was most helpful. And if you are into (old skool term) “Cyber” like me, keep in mind some of the thoughts that Iain Tait voices here about the category.